Everyone in the UK wanted to know what the 'austerity' budget would bring, and our client TaxTV needed a robust solution to broadcast their 'budget special' internet video channel as a freebie to every Accountancy practice in the UK interested in the tax implications of the budget.

Concurrent connections were in the region of 200 at a time to view the 60 minute broadcast over a period of about 4 days. Dedicated server solutions would be prohibitive vs return on investment, as demand peaks and troughs. Enter the cloud. Using Rackspace Cloud files hooked up to a bespoke Joomla component we created a hybrid solution that links Joomla to the cloud files to ensure that the client only pays for what is used.

This meant we could spec a base level hosting solution for the Joomla install backed up by the enterprise level cloud solution that scales on demand and uses the Akaemi CDN to deploy files to local points of presence, thereby speeding up the viewing experience.

Combine that with Google Analytics Event Tracking and we could feedback to the client the number of plays, pauses and stops on each of the video reels. This learning showed us that we needed to use a You Tube channel effect to break the main video up into 'bite-size' chunks. This increased interaction with the overall video and made the channel a lot 'sticker' than it had been before.

To find out more about using cloud files with your rich media solutions get in touch with STAR Digital's digital publishing team.